Dozens of professional clowns, their faces a patchwork of colourful paint, marched through the administrative heart of La Paz this week, their traditional whistles and small fireworks sounding a protest against what they see as a direct threat to their survival.
The demonstrators, joined by tailors and photographers whose work is tied to school events, gathered outside Bolivia’s ministry of education on Monday, 30 March 2026. Their grievance is a presidential decree published in February that mandates all schools must complete 200 full days of lessons each academic year, which runs from February to November. In practice, this new rule severely limits or outright bans non-academic festivities during the standard school week.
The Decree Cutting Short Celebration
The directive was issued by the government of President Rodrigo Paz, the conservative leader sworn in on 8 November 2025 who inherited a nation in severe economic distress. His administration has pursued a series of reforms, including the recent elimination of fuel subsidies and a ban on mobile phones in classrooms. The education decree is framed as an effort to bolster academic rigour, but for the clown community, it strikes at the core of their livelihood.
Clowns are a staple of the Bolivian school calendar, hired to entertain children at events that break up the routine of lessons. A key date in their diary is Children’s Day, celebrated nationally on 12 April. Under the new rules, such celebrations are no longer authorised on regular school days, though they may be held voluntarily on weekends—a provision the protesters say is inadequate and unworkable.
“This decree will economically affect all of us who work with children,” said Wilder Ramírez, a leader of the local clown union who performs under the name Zapallito. He argued that “children need to laugh,” and questioned whether the country’s education minister had forgotten the value of childhood play. Government officials have stated they will take the clowns’ critiques into account when drafting the decree for the 2027 school year, but these future assurances offered little solace to those protesting now.
An Income Under Threat in a Struggling Economy
The fear is one of acute financial hardship. “This decree will diminish our income, and with the economic crisis the country is going through, our future looks increasingly gloomy,” said Elías Gutiérrez, a spokesperson for the Confederation of Artisanal Workers of Bolivia. His statement points to the precarious position of informal workers, who form a substantial part of the national economy and often live hand-to-mouth.
Bolivia is currently grappling with its worst economic crisis in decades. Revenues from natural gas, a key export, are plummeting due to a sustained production decline. US dollars are becoming scarce in the landlocked nation, driving up the cost of imports and fuelling inflation. In this context, the loss of regular school gigs is not a minor inconvenience but a potential catastrophe for artisans whose trades are already vulnerable.
The protest underscored how the decree ripples out beyond the clown profession. The tailors who craft the distinctive costumes for both performers and children for cultural events, and the photographers who document school celebrations, joined the march, seeing their own incomes tied to the same cycle of school festivities. One clown’s placard captured the sentiment bluntly, accusing the government of “taking away smiles, and taking work away.”
The situation highlights a broader tension between government policy aimed at formalising and regulating sectors like education, and the reality of a large informal economy that depends on traditional, often unstructured, opportunities for work. For Bolivia’s clowns—cultural figures who have even adapted during past crises, such as creating face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic—the fight is to preserve a space for joy within the schoolyard, and for their own means of survival outside it.
